Don't Make It So Difficult!

  Because one of the social studies classes was taken up by the writing test (see previous post), the other classes had book work. It was work they had started before, and the instructions were still on the board (and have been for over a week). All they had to do was continue from where they stopped previously. So, it should have been easy, right?

Apparently, it's not so easy.

The students' book. 

  Many of the students did not bring their books. Many of the students did not have their previous book work. Many students could not remember where they were in the book. Many students asked which sections they were supposed to do (this was written on the board). Many students thought we were working on a different assignment and pulled out the previous days work. These were the issues they had which took up the first 15 minutes of class.

  Then there were students who wanted help for each question. Students who wanted to play. Students who wanted to talk to others about unrelated subjects. Students who did not want to pay attention. There was even a student that told me that he knew that he did not need to finish the work because classwork was only 20% of his grade.

  Just doing book work is not ideal. The students get board and I doubt they retained anything that they wrote down. However, some days are going to have to involve book work, and the students need to learn how to find information in their books so that they can use the skill later in high school and college. The students made it much more difficult than it should have been. Today should have been an easy day, even if it was boring.

Only one student finished his work out of two classes.